Delivering a special area presentation on the criminal-justice system and his own personal journey following a wrongful conviction, inspirational speaker Yusef Salaam visits Augustana College on March 7, his Centennial Hall lecture covering the man's experiences as an accused member of “The Central Park Five” and his long road to a new identity as one of “The Exonerated Five.”

Named “a true original” by the New York Times and “the first important dramatist of American public life since Arthur Miller” by Time magazine, Tony Award winner and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang serves as the latest guest in Quad City Arts Visiting Artist Series, his February 12 presentation at Augustana College profiling an extraordinary career in stage drama, musicals, operas, film, television, and, as a theatre professor at Columbia University, even academia.

Over a legendary career that produced nine symphonies, 16 string quartets, and 32 piano sonatas, Ludwig van Beethoven completed only one opera, and the story of its creation – and the immense toll it took on its composer – will be told in the German American Heritage Center's“Return into Your Prison Now!” The Long Battle for Beethoven's 'Fidelio,' a January 26 presentation by noted Quad Cities composer and Augustana College associate professor Dr. Jacob Bancks.

With this year's annual community event themed “Rise” – taken from the famed quote “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up” – Augustana College's 2020 Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration will be held in the college's Centennial Hall on January 18, its evening of art, poetry, dance, and music highlighted by a special visit from the young vocal talents of the Soul Children of Chicago.